Early voting for Texas runoff elections began Monday, and the Republican primary runoff for the U.S. Senate quickly became the main event. Ken Paxton spent the day in North Texas pressing the case that John Cornyn can be beaten, while Cornyn was out at a campaign event trying to hold together a party split over loyalty to President Donald Trump.
The race is already the most expensive U.S. Senate contest in history, and both men are acting as if the outcome will turn on who can claim the stronger bond with Trump. Paxton told supporters that Cornyn is “not a big Donald Trump fan” and said the senator had once argued Trump should not be reelected and likely should go to jail. Cornyn, who has served in the Senate since 2002 and is seeking a fifth term, has never lost an election.
Paxton, who did not speak to reporters on Monday, used his stop in North Texas to lean into that argument. He said Cornyn was not supportive in “any of the election stuff,” fought Trump in 2016 on his first election and later spent “$100 million talking about how much he loves Donald Trump.” The criticism was pointed and specific, built around a claim that Cornyn’s recent embrace of Trump is too new to be trusted by voters who have made loyalty to the former president a test of Republican credibility.
Cornyn, meanwhile, is trying to present himself as part of the same Trump coalition Paxton is targeting. Trump has said good things about both men, has not endorsed in the race and has left the field open for each candidate to argue he is the truer ally. Cornyn responded to the political fight by saying campaigns are about telling the story and reminding people what they already knew, especially in a state that keeps changing as new residents move in. He said voters need to hear the case for the Texas model of success again.
The stakes sharpened over the weekend, when Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger in Louisiana. Southern Methodist University political scientist Matthew Wilson said that result could be a bad sign for Cornyn, but he also noted an important difference: Cornyn has not alienated Trump voters the way Cassidy did. Wilson said Cassidy made himself persona non grata in MAGA world by voting to impeach Trump, while Cornyn has not crossed that line. He also pointed out that Trump has appeared with Cornyn and praised him, something he never did for Cassidy.
That distinction may matter more than the slogans now flooding the runoff. Paxton is betting there is enough division inside the Texas Republican Party to topple a senator who has been in office for more than two decades and has never lost. Cornyn is betting that time in office, familiarity and Trump’s refusal to pick a side will keep enough Republicans from breaking away. In a race where both men are trying to sound most loyal to the same president, the question is not whether Trump matters. It is whether his voters will believe Paxton’s attack on Cornyn before they believe Cornyn’s own claim on the Trump mantle.
